GTWC | Mercedes wins Race 2 Sprint at Brands Hatch, Ferrari rejoices

Mercedes AMG-Motorsport celebrates the first success of the 2024 GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup season thanks to a masterful performance by Maro Engel and Lucas Auer.

In Race 2 at Brands Hatch, where the morning sun was obscured by threatening clouds for the last battle of the day, without however having rain to mix up the cards, the Winward Racing pair dominated, making the most of the Pole Position achieved in Q2 from Auer.

The Austrian did nothing wrong by immediately keeping the #48 AMG with its marvelous yellow-green serpentine livery ahead of Jules Gounon’s #9 Mercedes, managing as best as he could a margin of a few seconds until the whirlwind began. pit stops.

Here Engel managed to return to the track in the lead, while Gounon passed the AMG of Boutsen VDS to his teammate Maximilian Götz, who however was overtaken by the Ferrari #69 of Emil Frey Racing driven by the excellent Thierry Vermeulen and Giacomo Altoè, who took the second place made up for the collapse in the standings of Race 1 due to a penalty.

There were no neutralizations during the 60′ and the crews had to sweat out all their positions on the track or through pit stops. At Tresor Attempto Racing, a good fourth place was achieved by the Audi #99 of Aka/Feller, followed by the Ferrari #14 of Green/Lappalainen (Emil Frey Racing), who after the pit stops overtook the McLaren #159 of Gamble/ Goethe.

The Garage 59 720S had a great pace towards the end, but time lost in traffic denied it a further comeback. Gamble gave it his all, managing to get rid of the #46 WRT BMW on lap 29 that Valentino Rossi was trying to keep in sixth, after having inherited it from Maxime Martin who was capable of climbing from 11th to 7th place.

The ‘Doctor’ subsequently also had to give way to the M4 #32 of his Weerts/Vanthoor teammates (lap 34), but on lap 37 he ended up very wide at the ‘Paddock Hill’, covering several meters in the dirt; complaining of steering problems, the driver from Tavullia was called back to the pits for a sad retirement.

In this way, eighth place goes to the Porsche #96 of Niederhauser/Müller (Rutronik Racing), lightened by 10 kg after Qualifying as it was visibly in difficulty, while with ninth place overall Evrard/Magnus took home the victory in the Gold Cup at the wheel of the #25 Audi of Saintéloc Racing, beating that of the winners of Race 1, Engstler/Hofer (#6 Team Engstler).

Third place in the category went to Legeret/Gachet in the CSA Racing Audi #111, while the Ferrari #51 of Eastwood/Yoluç (Racing Team Turkey-AF Corse) placed much further away. However, the race of the Aston Martin #21 of Jakes/Lismont (Comtoyou Racing) was a disaster, relegated to last and collecting a 20″ penalty between excessive speed in the pit lane and a series of track limits not respected.

#71 AF Corse, Ferrari 296 GT3: Eliseo Donno, Thomas Fleming

Photo by: SRO

Close to the absolute Top 10 we then find the AF Corse Ferrari #71 of the ‘terrible kids’, Thomas Fleming and Eliseo Donno. At their debut in the SRO series, the two champions of the Ferrari Challenge were the authors of an extraordinary performance, winning the Silver Cup class and with the Apulian who managed to hold on around 7th place for a few laps at the start, earning real applause .

There was nothing to be done for Panis/Gazeau who had to settle for placing the Mercedes #10 of Boutsen VDS in second place, while Williams/De Haan fought to reach the last step of the Silver podium with the BMW #30 of WRT, keeping the Ferrari #52 of Hudspeth/Machiels (AF Corse) behind.